The photographer’s eye by john szarkowski is interesting, little text, but lot the comment on. I might write a seperate post about the book.

Looking forward to my vacation. In last months I did a lot of preparation work for a Botswana trip. It will be the first time I experiment with video. The main goal stays photography, but I want to make a videoclip of the solo-selfdrive-photography-safari I planned. Also I want to experiment with some photography techniques.

‘Nick Knight is among the world’s most influential and visionary photographers, and founder and director of award-winning fashion website SHOWstudio.com. As a fashion photographer, he has consistently challenged conventional notions of beauty ‘, (Knight, 2017).

His pictures have a bit of absurdism or sci-fi or fantasy-elements in them, are very stylish. Nick experiments continuously with new technologies. He is a progressive image maker. I’m glad he uses the word ‘image’, as in my opinion some images are no longer pictures because of extensive digital manipulation. I like his work best when the digital manipulation isn’t too obvious (to me).

I like his use of dark and desaturated colors very much. The thoughtful use of colors is something I’d like to implement in my own photography when I start photographing more studio or still life work.

Giovanni Gastel is an Italian photographer, famous for his fashion and still life photography. His pictures are very balanced, structured, a bit formal, sometimes complex. Perfect selection & composition.

While reading and thinking about photography questions come up. Questions I don’t have answers to yet. For now theorizing on photography equals doubt to me. The thoughts are random and incoherent.

The supposed classical aesthetic of white marble turns out not true (www.trackingcolour.com). Does that change perception of art history!

Interesting questions from Charlotte Jansen: can selfies be feminist? Is Instagram a valid art form? Do women photograph women differently to men?

Cultural context and art.

It’s about the love and dediction for what your doing. The photograph is just the end result.

John szarkowski – the photographer’s eye – not too much text, but a lot to think about. Looking at the first pages with pictures I don’t understand the selection criteria, but slowly the chosen pictures start making sense.

The valley of the shadow of death – war photograph by Roger Fenton. Song lyrics?, not psalm 23:4, but cavalera conspiracy song ‘killing inside’ which used psalm lyrics.

Art history is about investigating the circumstances surrounding an artwork. Under which conditions was it made? Which factors attribute to the end result of an artwork? Art history is about establishing the context of an art work. In order to do this art historians look at: the age of an art work, style, subject, artist, patron, etc.

When we look at the vocabulary of describing art and architecture we see many words that are relevant in other disciplines as well, not only in scientific disciplines, but also f.e. in commerce:

form and composition

material and technique

line & shape

colour & value

pattern & texture

space, mass and volume

perspective and foreshortening

proportion and scale

unity & balance

emphasis and focal point

rhythm & motion

Art works can be analysed from many viewpoints: social, political, philosophical, historical, and technical. Different people might come to different conclusions as cultural background and education will have an influence.

Photography

Some words more specific to photography, although related to/can be categorised under above mentioned vocabulary as well, are:

frame shape and dynamics

light & exposure

intent & post-production

There are many accounts on the social history of photography and there is just as many debate on those as well.

‘A great deal goes on the process of making an exposure that is not at all obvious to someone else seeing the result later. This will never prevent art critics and historians from supplying their own interpretations, which may be extremely interesting but not necessarily have anything to do with the circumstances and intentions of the photographer’, (Freeman, 2007:6)

Conclusion

For me if we talk art, everything can be summarised in two intermingled words: culture & design.

‘The sixty-year-old wanderer, Ion Barladeanu, lives in the Romanian capital Bucharest, where he survives by cleaning up garbage. When a gallery owner finds that Barladeanu has a collection of fascinating social critique collages that he made when the dictator Ceausescu was in charge, Ion B. becomes a celebrity‘, (Close Up, 2017)

Ion balances between genius and madness. Between being an artist and a drunk. His social commentary collages are fascinating, sharp, humorous & cynical.

Bibliography

Alexander Nanau (2010), The World According to Ion B.,

Close up (2017), At: https://www.npo.nl/avro-close-up/21-12-2010/AVRO_1416695 last visited (4 May 2017)